The Federal Criminal Justice System: the Tight of Freedom From Cruel and Unusual Punishment - Research Paper Example

21April 2011 The federal criminal justice system’s has developed through the years with the insertion of the 8th amendent, specifically the right of freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. The research focuses on the 8th amendment of the United States constitution. Specifically, the research delves into the cruel and unusual punishment provisions of the amendments. The research includes relevant case laws and statutes to back up the statements. The cruel and usual punishment case laws and statutes have helped to define our current application of the law with respect to the 8th amendment. George Cole (2006) emphasized cruel and unusual punishment includes death penalty, torture, inhuman and degrading punishment, and excessive fines and excessive deprivations. Such punishment is unpopular because it unnecessarily imposes excessive torment or embarrassment on the convicted criminals. Historically, the law makers of the English Bill of rights if 1689 coined the words cruel and usual punishment in its crafting of the English version of the bill of rights. William Schabas (2008) states the United Nations General Assembly included in its international bill of rights the phrase “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumn or degrading treatment or punishment” in Article 5 of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Following suit, the United States included the same provisions in it 1787 Amendment to the United States Constitution. In 2008, Greg Roza (2011) reiterated the United States Supreme Court ruled that cruel and usual punishment was meted by American soldiers when they use waterboarding to torture the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Likewise, the American soldiers mistreated and forced the prisoners to participate in humiliating activities. According to the Eight Amendment, the law preventing the implementation of cruel and unusual punishment was enforced to eliminate prior methods of punishments classified as cruel and unusual. For example, impalement was form of cruel and unusual punishment becauese the punishers should pierce the person’s body with a long killing tool. Here, the person would suffer a painful and slow death. This type of European and Asian punishment was popular during the time of Ivan the Terrible. Other forms of cruel and unusual punishment included drawing and quartering, embowelling alive, public dissecting, beheading, and burning alive [Wilkerson V. Utah, 99 U.S. 130, 135 (1878)]. The courts allowed electrocution to be excempt from the list of cruel and unusual punishment [In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436 (1890)]. Complaints about cruel and unusual punishment had been voiced in 1789. Back then, the bill rights proponents included the fight to eliminate cruel and unusual punishment. This is found in the Annals of Congress 754 (1789). English history laid the path to the inclusion of the “cruel and unsual punishment” clause in its 1689 bill of rights. This is shown in E.g., 2 J. Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Constitution 111 (2d ed 1836); 3 id.at 447 -52 (Ref: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment08/03.html#1). Likewise, the Supreme Court rulings include Granucci, “Nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted”: The Original Meaning, 57 Calif. L. Rev. 839 (1969). The term without proportionality had been used by the Court in the case Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349 (1910). Greg Roensch (Roensch, 2007) agrees it is vague that the ``unusual'' can be included under the term cruelty Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 276 n.20 (1972) ( with Justice Brennan seeing eye to eye)], even though it may be significant in Weems, 217 U.S. at 377, and in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100 n. 32 (1958) (plurality opinion), and it was significant in the case of Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 994-95 (1991) (``severe, mandatory penalties may be cruel, but they are not unusual in the constitutional sense, having been employed in various forms throughout our Nation's history”). But in Weems v. United States [217 U.S. 349 (1910)] it had been ruled that the framers of the United States constitution had not merely intended to bar the reinstitution of procedures and techniques outlawed in 1789, but included other related forms of punishment. The law was aimed at deleting the authorization of a coercive cruelty being exercised through other forms of punishment. The Amendment was classified as an expansive and vital character (Id at 376-377) and, the a more recent court decision stated must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society [Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100-101 (1958) the decision indicated a plurality of opinion. The better altternative to interpret the provision continues to be one of the influential factors of the differences among the Justices in the capital punishment cases (Radin, The Jurisprudence of Death: Evolving Standards for the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, 126 U. Pa. L. Rev. 989 (1978)]. Further there are cases on focusing on cruel and unusal punishment to prove the point. The cases include Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1878); In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436 (1890); cf. Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 368-72 (1910). On the present Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist gives in to this view [see, e.g., Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 208 (contradicting view)], and the views of Justices Scalia and Thomas are on the same plane. E.g., Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 966-90 (1991)(Justice Scalia announcing judgment of Court) (relying on original comprehension of the Amendment and of the English benchmark to debate that there is not a single proportionality principle in non-capital cases); and Hudson v. McMillian, 112 S. Ct. 995, 1010 (1992) (with Justice Thomas contradicting)(contradicting the Court's extension of the Amendment ``beyond all limits of history and precedent'' in emphasizing that there is no need to establish ``significant injury'' to prove sadistic and malicious beating of shackled prisoner is another form of cruel and unusual punishment). In the Rudolph v. Alabama, 375 U.S. 889 (1963), Justices Goldberg, Douglas, and Brennan, dissenting from a denial of certiorari, argued that the Court should have heard the case to consider whether the Constitution permitted the imposition of death ``on a convicted rapist who has neither taken nor endangered human life,'' and presented a line of argument questioning the general validity of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment. The courts had approved to hear a series of cases directly focusing on the issue of the validity of capital punishment under the cruel and unusual punishments clause, and, to a significant surprise, the Court affirmed in Furman v. Georgia (\53\408 U.S. 238 (1972). The change in the Court's approach had appeared during shift of Justices Stewart and White, who had voted with the majority in McGautha.) stated the punishment of death penalty did generally infringe the Eighth Amendment. There was no overwhelming opinion of the Court in Furman; the five Justices in the majority each focused on the issue from a different angle in a diverse approving decision. Two Justices opined that the death penalty per se was ``cruel and unusual'' on the ground that the implementation of the death penalty is not in consonance with human dignity [Id. at 257 (Justice Brennan)]. or simply based on the reason that the imposition of the death penalty is identified as ``morally unacceptable'' and ``excessive.''[Id. at 314 (Justice Marshall)]. Further, one Justice opined that since death is a penalty normally imposed on the poor and hapless defendant but the affluent and socially better defendant can easily use money and influence to escape the death penalty, it breaches the implicit qualification of equality of treatment emphasized within the tenets of the Eighth Amendment [Id. at 240 (Justice Douglas)]. Two Justices opined that capital punishment was both ``cruel'' and ``unusual'' because it was applied in an arbitrary, ``wanton,'' and ``freakish'' manner [Id. at 306 (Justice Stewart)]and so occasionally that it indicate there was no justifying conclusion [Id. at 310 (Justice White). The four dissenters, in four diverse opinions, debated with diverse focuses that the United States Constitution itself continues to recognize capital punishment in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The death penalty was not ``cruel and unusual'' when the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments were submitted for congressional scrutiny and ratified, that the Court was implementing a legislative act to delete the portion, and that even under modern standards it could not be classified as ``cruel and unusual.'' Id. at 375(Chief Justice Burger), 405 (Justice Blackmun), 414 (Justice Powell), 465 (Justice Rehnquist). Each of the dissenters agreed with the opinions of the others]. McGautha was convinced with the opinion of Crampton v. Ohio case. McGautha posed the question on whether the provision for imposition of the death penalty without legislative guidance to the sentencing authority in the form of standards defied the due process clause; Crampton posed the issue whether due process had been defied when both the topic of guilt or innocence and the subject of whether to implement the death penalty were decided in a unitary court action. Justice Harlan for the Court ruled that standards were not required because, ultimately, it would be impossible to describe with any degree of specificity which defendant should live and which should be meted the death penalty; while bifurcated proceedings may be preferable, the proceedings may note needed by due process clause of the law. Since only two of the Furman Justices thought the death penalty was invalid in all circumstances, those who wished to implement the penalty zeroed in on drafting statutes that would rectify the blunders identified in the other three majority opinions [(collectors of judicial disapproval of colleagues should note Justice Rehnquist's characterization of the many expressions of faults in the system and their correction as ``glossolalial.'' Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280,317 (1976) (contradicting)]. The imposition of the death penalty statutes by 35 States following Furman led to continuing litigation. Instead, while the Court looked steadfast on the path to the conclusion that only criminal acts that crop up in the deliberate taking of human life may be meted a similar action where the state's taking of human life [On crimes not involving the taking of life or the actual commission of the killing by a defendant, see Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977) (rape); Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982) (felony murder committed by confederate)]. Those cases in which a large peril, though not implemented, to the lives of many may have been present, as in the case of airplane hijackings, may add up to an exception to the Court's narrowing of the crimes for which capital punishment may be approve. The federal hijacking law, 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1472, metes death only when death occurs during the hijacking activity. But the treason statute does not impose the death penalty (18 U.S.C. Sec. 2381). It preferred many diverse routes in trying to demarcate the acceptable procedural tools that should be set into motion in order that death penalty may be constitutionally approved and pursued (ref: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/html/amdt8.html). For clarity, the Court decided that the death penalty for deliberate murder is not per se cruel and unusual, but that mandatory death statutes leaving the jury or trial judge no other recourse but to consider that the individual defendant and his crime are cruel and unusual, and that benchmarks and processes may be set up for the implementation of the death sentence in order to eradicate or diminish the arbitrariness and irrationality seen as very significant as shwonin the Furman case. [Justices Brennan and Marshall adhered to the view that the death penalty is per se unconstitutional ]. Divisions among the Justices, however, had made it a complex issue to ascertain the form which legal designs may permissibly take [A comprehensive scrutiny of the many methods followed in Furman-era cases may be located in Radin, The Jurisprudence of Death: Evolving Standards for the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, 126 U. Pa. L. Rev. 989 (1978)]. Further, since the three Justices in the majority in the Furman case who did not altogether contradict the imposition of the death penalty thought the problems with the justice system centered on the discriminatory and arbitrary implementation [Thus, Justice Douglas opined the death penalty had been applied discriminatorily, Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), Justice Stewart opined the implementation of the death penalty had been applied in an arbitrary, ``wanton,'' and ``freakish'' manner id. at 310, and Justice White opined the implementation of the death penalty had been rarely applied that it served no justifying purpose. Id. at 313], the United States law making bodies turned to crafting of statutes that are aimed to remove these difficulties by, on the one hand, offering automatic imposition of the death penalty upon conviction by the United States courts of law for certain forms of murder, or, more commonly, offering specified aggravating and mitigating issues that the death penatly sentencing officer should take into consideration in implementing the death sentence, and instituting special cour procedures to follow in all capital punishment cases. For clarity, in five 1976 court cases, the Court disapproved the automatic death penalty sentencing but approved other statutes indicating issues for jury contemplation [The main opinion was in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) (upholding statute providing for a splitd proceeding segregating the guilt and sentencing phases, necessitating the jury to seek at least one of ten statutory aggravating issues before handing down the avoidable death penalty, and providing for an automatic review of all death sentences by the Georgia Supreme Court). The statutes of two other States were similarly approved, Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 (1976) (the statute was generally similar to Georgia's, with the exclusion that the trial judge, rather than jury, was heading to weigh the statutory aggravating factors against statutory mitigating factors), and Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976) (the statute was taken to mean a narrowing death-eligible class, and the lumping of mitigating issues into considering its future dangerousness), whereas those of two other States were annulled, Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976), and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976) (both cases required the imposition of the death penalty for first-degree murder.)]. First, the Court opined that the imposition of the death penalty as a punishment for murder does not itself equate to cruel and unusual punishment. While there were degree variances among the seven Justices in the majority on the issue of death penalty imposition, the judges seemed to approve the position that reenactment of capital punishment statutes by 35 States prevented the Court from ruling that this form of penalty was no longer acceptable to a majority of the American people; on the other hand, the judges ruled that a big percentage of American population continued to regard the imposition of the death penalty as an appropriate and necessary criminal sanction. The Court stated it is impossible to decide whether the death penalty is not in consonance with the basic precepts of human dignity enshrined at the very core of the Eighth Amendment on the issue of cruel and unjust punishment. Courts are not free to inject their own biased opinions for the American society and their elected law makers. The judge implements the penalties indicated in the laws; the law makers scrutinize and insert the corresponding penalties and fines for each felony or crime. A death penalty law, similar to the other laws, comes before the courts having a supposition of legality which can only be overturned upon a strong showing by those who oppose the constitutionality of the penalty or law. In addition, whether in fact the death penalty validly serves the allowable uses of payback and prevention, the judgments of the state’s law makers are that it does, and those judgments are subject to its corresponding respect. Therefore, the imposition of death as a corresponding punishment for murder is justified and is not considered cruel and unusual punishment. The punishment of death is proportionate to the crime being punished, murder [Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 168-87 (1976) (Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens); Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 350-56 (1976) (Justices White, Blackmun, Rehnquist, and Chief Justice Burger). Justice White's opinion basically approves this opinion in concluding that the American society’s sentiment agrees with the imposition of capital punishment, but did not approve the proportionality analysis. Justice White's Furman contradiction and those of Chief Justice Burger and Justice Blackmun indicates a contradiction of proportionality analysis. Justices Brennan and Marshall dissented, reiterating their Furman views (Gregg, supra, at 227, 231)]. Thus, In Coker v. Georgia [433 U.S. 584 (1977), Justice White's opinion was echoed by Justices Stewart, Blackmun, and Stevens. Justices Brennan and Marshall agreed that the death penalty is per se invalid (id. at 600) and Justice Powell concurred on a more limited basis than Justice White's opinion (Id. at 601). Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist contradicted. Id. at 604], the Court held that the state may not implement the death penalty upon a rapist who does not take a human life [Although the Court stated the issue in the area of the rape of an adult woman (id. at 592) the opinion at no point tried to differentiate between adults and children. Justice Powell's concurrence expressed the view that the death penalty is ordinarily disproportionate for the rape of an adult woman, but that some rapes might be so brutal or heinous as to justify it. Id. at 601].The Court announced that the standard under the Eighth Amendment was that punishments are barred when they are ``excessive'' in relation to the crime committed. Accordingly, a ``punishment is `excessive' and against the constitutional if it (1) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment and hence is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering; or (2) is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime.''(Id. at 592.) In order that judgment appear to be the subjective conclusion of the individual Justices, focus must be relegated to the objective factors, primarily ``to the public attitudes concerning a particular sentence--history and precedent, legislative attitudes, and the opinions of jury members shown in their sentencing decisions. . . .''(Id). While the Court opined that the imposition of the death penalty for rape cases passed the first test, the court seemed to be inclined to think that it failed the second test. For example, Georgia was the sole state providing for death for the rape of an adult woman, and juries in at least nine out of ten cases refused to impose death for rape. Robert Regoli (Regoli, 2009) emphasized Aside from this view of public perception, the Court independently concluded that death is an excessive penalty for an offender who rapes but does not kill; rape cannot compare with murder ``in terms of moral depravity and of injury to the person and the public.''(Id. at 598). Applying the Coker analysis to the issue at hand, the Court’s conclusion in Enmund v. Florida [458 U.S. 782 (1982)indicated Justice White wrote the opinion of the Court and was joined by Justices Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens. Justice O'Connor, with Justices Powell and Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger, dissented. Id. at 801. Accordingly, Cabana v. Bullock, 474 U.S. 376 (1986) (also holding that the proper ruling in a habeas case is to remand for state court determination as to whether Enmund findings have been made).] that death is an unconstitutional penalty for felony murder if the defendant did not himself kill, or attempt to take life, or intend that anyone be killed. While a few more States implement the death penalty in felony murder cases than had imposed it for rape, however the weight of the evidences was heavily against the practice, and the evidence of jury’s decisions and other indications of a modern consensus similarly opposed the death penalty in such circumstances. Moreover, the Court determined that death was not an appropriate penalty for one who neither took life nor intended to do so. The reason is based on the principle that the death penalty is a likely deterrent only when murder is the result of premeditation and deliberation, and because the justification of retribution depends upon the degree of the defendant's culpability, the imposition of death upon one who joins in a crime in which a victim is murdered by one of his confederates and not as a result of his own intention serves neither of the purposes underlying the penalty [Justice O'Connor opined the evidence of contemporary standards did not point to a finding that capital punishment was not suitable in felony murder situations (Id. at 816-23). By contrast, the Court in 1989 found ``lack of evidence of a national consensus against executing mentally retarded people.'' While the Court accepts that ``it may indeed be `cruel and unusual'punishment to execute persons who are profoundly or severely retarded and wholly lacking the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions,'' retarded persons who have been found competent to stand trial, and who did not pass the court’s insanity test, belong to another category. Consequently, the Court did not approve that the implementation of the death penalty on a mentally retarded person is ``categorically prohibited by the Eighth Amendment [Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 335 (1989]. Lastly, confinement in prison cells fall under the scrutiny of the eight amendment standards [Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 345 (1981) (quoting Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 685 (1978)]. In addition, the prison conditions where there is wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain as well as living conditons are shown to be grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime warranting imprisonment may deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities. However, such conditions do not generally fall under cruel and unusual punishment. To the extent that the prisoner’s living conditions are restrictive and even harsh, such conditions form part of the convicted criminal’s penalty, a penalty which one must endure as payment for their offenses against society. Such principles apply both to the treatment of individuals [E.g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976) (deliberate medical neglect of a prisoner violates Eighth Amendment); Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (8th Cir. 1968) (beating prisoner with leather strap violates Amendment). Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993) (prisoner who alleged exposure to secondhand ''environmental'' tobacco smoke stated a cause of action under the Eighth Amendment)] as well as the creation or maintenance of prison living conditions that are genrally inhumane to prisoners [E.g., Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678 (1978)]. However, Todd Clear (2008) emphasized the prisoners must prove that cruel and unusual punishment was meted in terms of prison living conditions to the courts to stop such abuses. Based on the above discussion, the federal criminal justice system has developed through the years with the important introduction of the 8th amendent, specifically the right of freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. The 8th amendment of the United States constitution serves as a benchmark for correction facility officers in terms of crueland unusual punishment. Specifically, the cruel and unusual punishment provisions of the amendments were introduced to prevent the prior imposition and current clandestine cruel and unusual punishment of inmates, including the imposition of the death penalty. The cases and statutes serve as a benchmark for determining if the correction facilities and judges have overstepped the line in terms of cruel and unusual punishment. Indeed, the above cruel and usual punishment case laws and statutes have helped to define our current application of the law with respect to the 8th amendment. REFERENCES: Cole, G. (2006). The American System of Criminal Justice. New York: Cengage Press. Clear, T. (2008). American Corrections. New York: Cengage Press. Regoli, R. (2009). Exploring Criminal Justice: The Essentials. New York: Jones & Bartlett Press. Roensch, G. (2007). Furman V. Georgia: Cruel and Unusual Punishment. New York: Infobase Press. Roza, G. (2011). The Eight Amendment: Preventing Cruel and Unusual Punishment. New York: Rosen Press. Schabas, W. (2008). War Crimes and Human Rights: Essays on the Death Penalty, Justice, and Accountability. New York: Cameron Press. Case law: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment08/03.html#1 U.S. Constitution: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/html/amdt8.html Read More